A-Rod is expected to miss at least the first half of the season after hip surgery. Last week, the Miami New Times reported A-Rod’s name was included in “an extraordinary batch of records” that show he purchased PEDs from a shuttered Florida anti-aging clinic.

Rodriguez has denied the allegations.

“He’s scared, because he thinks this is so unbelievably false, and he’s wondering who could be behind this,” a source told the Daily News. “He thinks something could be going on larger than anyone might think.”

MLB investigators met with editors of the New Times on Monday, the Daily News reported.

“This involves some very nasty facts,” Cashman told fans in Times Square at the Yankees’ fundraiser for WCBS 880 producer-engineer Carlos Silva. “There needs to patience here as they thoroughly investigate this to determine the accuracy or inaccuracy, or where are there accuracies or inaccuracies in the story, and see if we can come up with what is fact and what are provable facts.”

He added: “Everybody, they deserve due process and right now you have just a very nasty story. We’ll just have to wait and let it all play out.”

The lengthy New Times report implicated a number of professional athletes, and stated the mentions of Rodriguez in the clinic’s records “begin in 2009 and continue all the way through last season.” A-Rod, who could face a 50-game suspension, admitted in ’09 to using steroids from 2001-03 with the Texas Rangers.

A report last week in the Daily News said A-Rod was “unlikely to ever wear the pinstripes again” following hip surgery on Jan. 16 and the New Times’ PED report. Multiple reports later stated A-Rod had no plans for an early retirement.

Cashman wouldn’t say where A-Rod would perform his rehab, or whether he’d report to spring training with the Yankees in Tampa.

“I’m not going to say, to try and keep away the extra whatever you want to call it, paparazzi, whatever it is, the stakeout wherever he is working out,” Cashman said Monday. “That’s the only reason I’m not going to say where he is going to be on a given day.”